The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) eBook

The ‘Poems’ of 1844—­Miss Martineau
and Mesmerism—­Pro-posed Journey to Italy

Chapter V
1846-1849

Friendship with Robert Browning—­Love and
Marriage—­Paris and Pisa—­Florence—­Vallombrosa—­Casa
Guidi—­Italian Politics in 1848

Chaptervi
1849-1851

Birth of a Son—­Death of Mrs. Browning,
senior—­Bagni di
Lucca—­New Edition of Poems—­Siena—­Florentine
Life

PortraitofElizabethBarrettBrowning. FrontispieceCasaGuidi

ThelettersofElizabethBarrettBrowning

CHAPTER I

1806-1835

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, still better known to the
world as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was born on March
6, 1806, the eldest child of Edward and Mary Moulton
Barrett. I Both the date and place of her birth
have been matters of uncertainty and dispute, and even
so trustworthy an authority as the ‘Dictionary
of National Biography’ is inaccurate with respect
to them. All doubt has, however, been set at
rest by the discovery of the entry of her birth in
the parish register of Kelloe Church, in the county
of Durham.[2] She was born at Coxhoe Hall, the residence
of Mr. Barrett’s only brother, Samuel, about
five miles south of the city of Durham. Her father,
whose name was originally Edward Barrett Moulton,
had assumed the additional surname of Barrett on the
death of his maternal grandfather, to whose estates
in Jamaica he was the heir. Of Mr. Barrett it
is recorded by Mr. Browning, in the notes prefixed
by him to the collected edition of his wife’s
poems, that ’on the early death of his father
he was brought from Jamaica to England when a very
young child, as a ward of the late Chief Baron Lord
Abinger, then Mr. Scarlett, whom he frequently accompanied
in his post-chaise when on circuit. He was sent
to Harrow, but received there so savage a punishment
for a supposed offence (burning the toast)’—­which,
indeed, has been a ‘supposed offence’ at
other schools than Harrow—­’by the
youth whose fag he had become, that he was withdrawn
from the school by his mother, and the delinquent
was expelled. At the age of sixteen he was sent
by Mr. Scarlett to Cambridge, and thence, for an early
marriage, went to Northumberland.’ His
wife was Miss Mary Graham-Clarke, daughter of J. Graham-Clarke,
of Fenham Hall, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but of her nothing
seems to be known, and her comparatively early death
causes her to be little heard of in the record of
her daughter’s life.

[Footnote 2: See Notes and Queries for
July 20, 1889, supplemented by a note from Mr. Browning
himself in the same paper on August 24.]

Nothing is to be gained by trying to trace back the
genealogy of the Barrett family, and it need merely
be noted that it had been connected for some generations
with the island of Jamaica, and owned considerable
estates there.[3] It is a curious coincidence that
Robert Browning was likewise in part of West Indian
descent, and so, too, was John Kenyon, the lifelong
friend of both, by whose means the poet and poetess
were first introduced to one another.